by Logan Jacobs
When I had become certain that I wasn’t going to find anything in the woods, I withdrew myself back to the driver’s seat, where nothing had changed except that the ponies had slowed to a huffing puffing trot.
“Whoa there, Luna, whoa there Chrysanthemum. Or Damask or Diamond or whatever the hell your names are. You can slow down now. It’s all right. Thank you for your hard work.” I spoke to them in soothing tones until they had slowed back to a walk. Ilandere did not seem to have tired at all yet, but she did seem relieved that I no longer thought we were threatened.
I sent myself back into the carriage behind us. Although I could double for as long as I chose to, my sending radius was about the same as any other order member’s, which was about equivalent to my height. Very useful in a fight. Not very useful for making it back to class on time from out in the field or catching up to a galloping horse on foot or visiting another town or anything like that.
Florenia let out a little gasp when the second me appeared beside her.
“Find anything?” Lizzy asked as she leaned out the carriage window.
“Not a thing,” I admitted from both of my mouths.
“Well, you should’ve had me with you. To sniff out the situation, like.” The she-wolf tapped her nose thoughtfully.
“Or maybe there just wasn’t anything to sniff out. It was probably just a raccoon or something that snapped a twig,” I said. “But if there ever was anyone, we’ve left them far behind by now.”
“Well, we all missed you,” Lizzy purred.
“I was still right outside, and I was only gone for half an hour,” I argued as the she-wolf leaned in for a kiss. I inconspicuously tried to hold her back with a hand to the shoulder and turn my head aside as I warned through gritted teeth, “Lizzy…”
She snickered at me. “What secret exactly do you think you’re protecting? You were gone for plenty long enough for us to talk about you.”
I snuck a glance through Lizzy’s mane at our other two companions.
Willobee had a hand over his face and was mumbling something incoherent that sounded a lot like, “My nice shiny carriage…”
But Florenia’s head was cocked, her lips slightly parted, and her eyes bright with interest.
Lizzy hadn’t moved her head away from mine when I held off her kiss, and when I slid my eyes back over to meet hers, the fact that I had not withdrawn either was all the permission she needed. She tilted her chin and engaged me in a hungry, open-mouthed kiss. My body urged me to enact a repeat performance of that afternoon’s ride. It wouldn’t be the same with Florenia present, of course.
It would be even better.
But there was also Willobee to consider. An oath is what it is, he’d said, and I knew my little gnome buddy would accept all my decisions even if he complained about them. But that didn’t mean that I wanted to force him to watch anything that would make him uncomfortable. Or that I wanted to be watched by a gnome while I fucked either of my alluring friends.
So I pulled away from Lizzy and leaned all the way back in my seat, my knees splayed apart. They could look if they wanted. My head tipped back and my eyes half-closed, I drawled to Willobee, “Sing us another song.”
And the gnome obliged.
Chapter Seven
There was no village and no inn anywhere near that night, so we found a spot where there was a clearing broad enough for the carriage and grass for the ponies to graze on, and set up camp.
The carriage was not well-insulated enough to provide any warmth beyond blocking the wind, and there was not enough room inside for us to spread out and lie down to sleep, so we gathered outside in the shelter of its bulk instead.
At first, I was wary about the idea of building a fire, even though it was a wintry night and cold, since the light would draw any human predators in the area to us like a beacon. I explained my reasoning for this decision, and not one of my companions complained about it.
Lizzy’s response was to strip off her surcoat and new accessories and set them in a neat pile before she promptly transformed into a wolf. She allowed the gnome to nestle in her fur and even wrapped her tail around him for extra warmth. But Ilandere clutched my cloak around her and shivered, her already-lily white skin completely drained of its usual faint rosy undertones, and despite her modest layers of vestal’s robes, Florenia’s teeth were soon chattering.
After observing all this, I relented. Wordlessly I both collected some branches, dug a shallow pit for them, and piled them in. Then I knelt to strike a spark into my tinderbox, and once the char cloth was ignited, I transferred it carefully into the pile of logs. Besides Lizzy, who continued to serve as a furry blanket for Willobee, the girls helped by collecting more twigs and any bits of moss and lichen they could find nearby that were dry enough to burn.
Soon we were all gathered around a cheerful, crackling little fire and everyone’s spirits much improved.
“This would be a very lovely night, if only we had a little honey mead,” Willobee sighed.
“It already is a very lovely night,” Ilandere said. The warmth and reflected light of the fire had restored a vivid flush to her cheeks. “It makes me very happy to be with you all. It is like having a new herd.”
Lizzy made a little rumble in her shaggy throat that sounded suspiciously like a laugh, but Willobee was positively melting. “We are honored by your radiant presence, my lady,” he told the centaur.
I could tell from the way Florenia kept peering over at Lizzy that, although she kept her face composed as ever, she was still trying to get used to the idea that the enormous nonverbal wolf was the same being as the scantily clad warrior woman she had just been sharing a carriage with for the last several hours.
The vestal eventually announced with a slight smile, “The four of you… or should I say five?... may very well be the most peculiar confederation of… entities that I have ever encountered, and that is saying something.”
“It is?” I asked. “What was your life like before the temple?”
“It was… ‘ill-befitting one of my birth and breeding,’” Florenia said cryptically. Her tone made it sound like she was quoting someone whose opinion she did not particularly care for, and the mischievous look in her hazel eyes dared me to ask for more information.
That is exactly what I would have done if an arrow had not at that very moment whizzed straight at her heart.
“Get down!” I leapt and knocked the beautiful brunette away just in time, and Willobee’s ponies neighed in terror.
Lizzy crouched low to the ground and snarled like she was good and ready to rip something to shreds. Her hackles standing up as tall as Willobee’s ostrich plume, but the gnome emitted a squeak and dashed for the carriage. A second arrow knocked his cap off his head, which revealed for the first time that the little gnome was bald as an egg, but he kept going without breaking stride and made it through the door.
“He’s right, that’s the safest place,” I said urgently to Florenia as I shielded the vestal with one of my bodies. “Let’s get you in there too. On three, get up and run.”
Meanwhile my other body took a few steps outward toward the edge of the clearing and shouted, “Where are you? Show yourself!”
Then I withdrew that body into the other right before two arrows flew through the space it had just been occupying. This was starting to look like a shitty night, but that didn’t mean I had to experience one of my bodies getting punched full of arrows if I didn’t need to.
I sent my second body back out next to Lizzy and lay flat on my belly propped up on my elbows as I asked her urgently, “Where are the shots coming from? How many do you think?”
She swung her snout wildly back and forth, sniffed the air, and growled in frustration. The sound of hoofbeats circled the clearing just out of sight, so it seemed that my ears had not deceived me earlier on the road.
Meanwhile Florenia rose up from under me and attempted to run to the carriage, but she tripped on her long pink robes. As she went dow
n, I again covered her with my body, which resulted in an arrow burying itself in my back. That hurt, but not as much as the next arrow which burst through my jugular. The instant my heart stopped beating I sent out a replacement self, pulled Florenia from the arms of my corpse, slung her over my shoulder, dashed to the carriage, and threw her in on top of the cowering gnome.
Lizzy charged into the forest barking furiously at the top of her lungs, and I sprinted at her side with Polliver out. As soon as we penetrated the treeline in the spot where arrows had last flown from, I heard the hoofbeats of another of our attackers on the opposite side of the clearing.
At the same time, my other self shut the carriage door and slid around toward the other side of the carriage where Ilandere had been the last time I saw her. She was too big to fit inside the carriage so I would just have to shield her with my body as best as I could until my other self had dealt with the threat. Or maybe I could send her into the woods for safety. She was fast, faster than any ordinary horse, but I didn’t want to accidentally send her straight into the path of our attackers?
I expected the poor little centaur to be quaking in fear and perhaps trying to hide underneath the carriage or something like that. What she was actually doing was standing perfectly upright, presenting the fullest possible target, as she plucked an arrow from the side of the carriage and examined it curiously.
“Ilandere!” I shouted. “Get down!”
Lizzy and my other self split up as we frantically tore through the brush in search of our attackers, but they kept evading us. An arrow would fly from one direction, and then a moment later we’d hear hoofbeats from another.
Ilandere blinked at me. “Vander, I think--” she started to say. Then she looked behind me, and her rosebud mouth opened in a silent scream. I calculated that her gaze was slightly diagonal, and I was, therefore, not directly between her and whatever had caused the scream. I ducked and an arrow shot inches above my head before it thudded into the carriage between me and Ilandere.
“Elodette, stop!” Ilandere screamed as she galloped out to the edge of the clearing. “Stop it right now! I command you!”
I thought she was about to get feathered with arrows, and I wasn’t close enough to do anything about it, but instead there was silence. No more twanging of arrows. No more hoofbeats.
“Elodette, present yourself,” Ilandere yelled in an imperious tone that I had never heard from the shy little centaur before.
As I stared in disbelief, a woman’s pale disembodied head and torso seemed to float into the clearing from behind the trees. Then I realized that her hips transitioned into the body of a muscular horse so black that it was almost invisible in the darkness. This other centaur was several hands taller than Ilandere. Her human body was also incredibly athletic, still feminine and graceful, but rippling with lean muscle throughout the arms, shoulders, back, and bare stomach. Instead of a rag tied over her chest like Ilandere’s, she wore a short leather breastplate that came down only as far as her ribs, and her dark brown hair was tied back in a thick braid that hung down past her waist.
As the brunette centaur approached me and Ilandere with a bow still clutched in her fist, the fire still alight next to the carriage started to illuminate more of her features. Her eyes were gray and as cold as steel. Her face was pretty in a sharp way, but what seemed more relevant at the moment was that her full lips were twisted in rage.
She swung the bow up and nocked an arrow back with dazzling speed. The tip was aimed directly at my forehead.
“Elodette, no. I forbid it,” Ilandere cried out, and the large dark centaur reluctantly lowered her bow before returning the arrow to the quiver on her back.
“Princess, you are making a mistake,” she said flatly as she continued to glare at me. “Human men… even the ones that pretend to be kind… are not to be trusted. You have no idea of the depravity his kind is capable of. You are lucky that I arrived in time before he showed you his true nature.”
“Princess?” I asked, but the two beautiful centaurs ignored me.
“You don’t know anything about Vander,” Ilandere retorted.
“Yes, I do,” Elodette insisted. “I’ve been watching you all for most of the day. Since you fought those bandits that were going to rob the stupid vestals.”
“Then you know that Vander is the kind of man who saves helpless women, not preys on them,” Ilandere said triumphantly.
“Actually, I know that he is the kind of man who likes to collect pretty women to satisfy his appetites,” Elodette corrected as she looked toward the carriage where Florenia was still hiding with Willobee. “I saw that he claimed one of the vestals as his reward for helping the order.”
“It wasn’t like that. I was there. Florenia was the one who decided she wanted to go with him,” Ilandere explained.
“Well, then I suppose that is the foolish human girl’s decision,” Elodette said coldly. “But it is far beneath your royal dignity to be lumped in with this human’s degenerate harem.”
“I can decide for myself what is and isn’t beneath my dignity,” Ilandere said fiercely. “And it is an honor to be Vander’s friend and a member of his party. I am much happier with him than I ever was with the herd. So you can go back and tell them that!”
“I will never leave without you, Princess,” Elodette replied, in a gentler tone. “Your many ridiculous mistakes can never change the fact that I swore my fealty to you, as my mother did to yours.”
As I stared at the new centaur, I was all kinds of impressed by her. It was hard to believe that one archer alone had been the source of all those arrows, from seemingly every direction at once. But she kept referring to herself in the singular as if she had been traveling and tracking us alone, and outside the clearing, as Lizzy and I prowled through the trees searching for the rest of her companions, we indeed found no one.
I grinned at Elodette and said, “It’s an absolute pleasure to meet any friend of Ilandere’s.”
She looked at me like I was a rodent and spat, “You should be dead.”
“And so I am,” I said cheerfully, and pointed at my corpse with her arrow through the jugular. “You are really something special with a bow. I don’t get myself killed by just any girl who waltzes by, you know.”
As I spoke, Lizzy and my other self crept up silently behind Elodette from out of the trees.
“Well, if you refuse to leave,” Ilandere said slyly, “I guess that makes you part of Vander’s degenerate harem now.”
“What did you say?” Elodette sputtered.
A deep growly wolf-chortle escaped from Lizzy’s throat, and Elodette whirled around, saw us standing there with my arm draped over Lizzy’s massively powerful shoulders, and gasped in shock.
“As Ilandere said, you are very welcome to join us,” I said from both behind her and in front of her.
“Princess, what is this monstrosity?” Elodette asked in horror.
“He’s a god,” Ilandere chirped, and then she trotted up to the larger centaur and flung her arms around Elodette’s waist. “Elodette, I’m so glad to see you. I missed you so much.”
Elodette froze for a moment, but then she returned the smaller silver centaur’s embrace.
Ilandere looked up at her imposing handmaiden with a radiant smile. “Thank you for coming to find me. I didn’t think anyone from the herd would even care that I left. But you’re the only one that I truly missed.”
“Ilandere, of course we all cared!” Elodette exclaimed. “You’re the princess!”
Ilandere pouted. “Yes, but that’s the only reason. And I didn’t want to be the princess anymore when none of you even thought I was worthy.”
Elodette sighed. “I can’t speak for the whole herd, but… you know that’s not the only reason I care about you, Ilandere.”
Ilandere nodded against the other centaur’s chest. Then she finally released her from the tight hug and clasped her hand instead, the hand that wasn’t still holding a bow that is. “Elodette, l
et me introduce you to everyone,” she said eagerly. “You’ll love them all once you get to know them, and especially Vander. I promise.”
“I very much doubt that,” Elodette said through gritted teeth, but she finally slung her bow.
I took that as my sign to open the carriage door and let Florenia and Willobee out to meet the newcomer. Willobee remained curled up in the corner looking very much like an exceptionally well-dressed boulder.
But Florenia flung herself around my neck and cried out, “You sacrificed yourself for me! You died for me.”
“Well, I… kind of sort of,” I managed to respond. I was a little flustered by the fact that I had never so much as accidentally brushed elbows with her before, and now her entire body was pressed up against mine. The close contact made it immediately obvious to me that the loose vestal’s robes she wore were depriving the world of even more visual splendor than I had dared to imagine.
“Not ‘kind of,’ you did.” Florenia seized my face between her hands and kissed me passionately. The kiss didn’t just involve tongue, it also involved a lot of forward pressure from her hip region.
I had to disentangle myself after a few glorious moments. There would be time for that later, but I didn’t want to give Ilandere’s handmaiden the wrong impression. I really wanted the fierce brunette to come around to the idea of joining the group, and not just tolerate our presence for Ilandere’s sake. Elodette was possibly the finest archer I had ever met. Short of successfully creating a third self, I could not have asked for a more useful ally. I just needed to be patient enough to win her over to our cause.